Warning up front: This is not going to be as long as a regular photoset, because usually I arrive on Friday evening, and this time I didn't hit the road until 6 PM Saturday, when I got off work. So this isn't a full-length work. Think of it more as an EP, with a limited amount of material to work with. Don't worry, though. I won't pad the photoset at all. Trust me.

Oh, and this was the third Philly meet, which is why I'm titling it Philly 3, even though I didn't title last year's Philly 2, because it was the first Philly meet I had attended. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

This isn't padding. This is something that baffles me, and I find the tortured logic of it hysterical. I took this out the window of the breakroom where I work. Every Saturday there are people who do this. I'm still trying to figure out their rationale. They seem to feel that sure, parking in a handicapped spot is unacceptable and they have enough moral fiber not to do it, but if they park in the unloading zone between the handicapped parking spaces, suddenly it's okay and they're not doing anything wrong. It seems like kind of tortured logic to me just to have to avoid walking an extra fifty feet. Maybe if I was a jerk like they are it would make more sense to me.

The view from work is nice, but in the winter the wind whips all the way across the valley and makes it miserable to be outside. Naturally some genius built a bunch of stores here and you have to walk outside to get from one store to another. I honestly don't see these stores lasting for long once the novelty of their existence has worn off and they're not the big new thing anymore, especially since they're not built on a major travel route. I figure people will prefer to not go out of their way to be cold and miserable on a mountainside. But then, I've overestimated people before. People who can rationalize parking between the handicapped spaces can certainly rationalize this.

And these are the ski slopes at Montage, perhaps better described as a couple of clearcut stripes on a hillside. Don't call it a ski resort; that'd just be silly.

I'm not padding. Honest.

And here's the wide-angle, slightly-angled view of where I work as I hit the road for Philadelphia. If you're ever in the neighborhood, feel free to swing by. The building at the bottom, just visible over the guard rail, is a visitor's center. I've never been there, because I'm not a visitor and I live here so I won't be fooled, but if any of you check it out, I'd love to know how exactly they're hyping this area to the literally three or four tourists we get each year.

I did eventually make it to Philadelphia. Jelloboi was thrilled beyond words to see me.

Ah, this is what meets are all about. Sitting around, chatting, drinking, and sticking your tongue out at the camera. I don't understand why this is so popular. My sister did this a lot at her own wedding, and mom later expressed some frustration that there were lots of photos that would have been good wedding shots if only her tongue wasn't sticking out.

Drunken Irishman also looked thrilled to see me, though maybe he was just a bit annoyed that a bird had crapped on his head.

Naners seemed a little happier to see me that the others. I did have some moments of inexplicable popularity at this meet.

Once Naners moved to her own seat, Pinklady stopped by to say Hi as well.

We got to play group Wii. The projector had a white stripe in it, which would have been annoying, but they aimed it right at a seam in the sliding wall and it made the stripe pretty much unnoticable. I knew I wasn't good even though I'd played the game before, and sure enough I got clobbered pretty good.

Also while playing I got hit in the side of the face with a small white plastic ball. I was busy breathing fire on Pikachu at the time, so I didn't worry much about it. Several minutes later the mystery was solved, as Dazz came over and apologized to me for hitting me with the ball.

"I was aiming at Tealsac," he told me.

He said he felt bad about hitting me and was impressed that I "took it like a man," in the sense that I'm not sure I even blinked. He said his aim was bad and claimed he was getting old. I told him that he wasn't old.

"I'm thirty," he said. I countered, "I'm thirty-one," at which point he seemed to decide the age thing was a losing argument and dropped that line of conversation.

I did appreciate the apology, though I wasn't really worried about getting hit with the ball. I simply assumed that it was MrGreenSmiling being his normal self and I didn't think too much of it. And Dazz, I just want to say, if Tealsac and I had been sitting in each other's places, you would have totally nailed him.

Jelloboi threatened to use the ranch dip as a weapon. That's no threat to be taken lightly. That dip has onion and green onion, motherfucker. (That may be an inside joke. Try not to concern yourself with it.)

I showed in earlier photos that I got the finger and the tongue. Here I get both at once.

We finally got PukeratTheUnclean to come to a meet. And by we, I mean it was about 0.6% me and 99.4% MrGreenSmiling that convinced him to come. I think he had a good time. I'm going to assume he did even if he later claims otherwise.

But what if Elle_Belle lost him on purpose?

AsthmaticCheeta is clearly drinking coffee here. Seriously, it's a coffee mug, so what else could possibly be in it?

The traffic we could see passing by through the tiny gap between the curtains in the morning looked a bit odd. When we opend the curtains, we found the reason why was that the motion wasn't traffic, it was the flag waving in the breeze. Live and learn. The glow above the flagpole is not a spirit or apparition, it's what you get when you are a total genius and forget to turn off the flash before attempting to take a photo through glass.

Drunken Irishman reads the newspaper's intellectual section.

This is a photo of Pinklady and AsthmaticCheeta looking at a photo of a bridge under construction. I would think this wouldn't be too confusing, but I swear they're looking at the photo like they're trying to figure out the punchline.

"Nope, I just don't get it."

We were told the cool kids were over here, so we went over, and this is what we found. Cool kids? You decide.

AsthmaticCheeta graciously made an effort to duck out of the way so I could get a picture of MrGreenSmiling and PukeratTheUnclean. This is the resulting photo.

No caption could possibly improve on this.

"Subaru" backwards is "U R A bus." And this one is yellow. Coincidence?

I had no idea MrGreenSmiling was a windowlicker, but he actually demonstrated for us. I hope Pinklady stopped at a carwash on the way home.

When I first saw this sign, I thought it said "Sherwin-Williams Pants." I blame the sign for being unclear and not properly emphasizing the I.

Visit Ihop in Philadelphia and view the scenic area behind the dumpster!

Yes, the Original Buttermilk Pancakes have "authentic country flavor," by which I'm assuming they mean cow pies. And just what exactly is "just the right amount of cornmeal," anyway?

The tradional post-brunch post-meet group loiter in the parking lot. I don't care if Naners is from Florida, she's bundled up like a freakin' Eskimo and she looks ridiculous. At least someone had the grace to tie her sleeves in a knot for her.

We leave Ihop. Only AlBassoon notices.

I swear I'm not padding the photset at all. By the way, if it's Sunday morning and you meet up with people to go to brunch, and one of them tells you that her head hurts, and you suggest, "Bang it off the headboard too many times?" and they look away and give a little smile and say, "Fuck you," can you safely assume that you nailed it in one? Because until someone convinces me otherwise, that's what I'm going with.

Yes, the 5 Quarters Store. The "Super Dollar Store Plus." Inflation, I assume? They can't fool me. If it's five quarters, it's not a dollar store. Nice try, though. And shameless, too.

The last photo I took at the meet, as Pinklady drives her MrGreenSmiling-licked car out of the hotel parking lot.

There was some serious bridge construction going on along the Turnpike, but I regret to inform you that at no point did I see the General Lee go flying over the highway where the bridge used to be.

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